Adenosine is a naturally occurring nucleoside, which exerts its biological effects by interacting with a family of adenosine receptors known as A1, A2A, A2B, and A3, all of which modulate important physiological processes. One of the biological effects of adenosine is to act as a coronary vasodilator; this result being produced by interaction with the A2A adenosine receptor. This effect of adenosine has been found to be useful as an aid to imaging of the heart, where coronary arteries are dilated prior to administration of an imaging agent (for example thallium 201), and thus, by observation of the images thus produced, the presence or absence of coronary artery disease can be determined. The advantage of such a technique is that it avoids the more traditional method of inducing coronary vasodilation by exercise on a treadmill, which is clearly undesirable for a patient that has a coronary disease.
However, administration of adenosine has several disadvantages. Adenosine has a very short half life in humans (less than 10 seconds), and also has all of the effects associated with A1, A2A, A2B, and A3 receptor agonism. Thus the use of a selective A2A adenosine receptor agonist would provide a superior method of producing coronary vasodilation, particularly one with a longer half life and few or no side effects.
A class of compounds possessing these desirable properties was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,403,567, the complete disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. In particular, one compound disclosed in this patent, (1-{9-[(4S,2R,3R,5R)-3,4-dihydroxy-5-(hydroxymethyl)oxolan-2-yl]-6-aminopurin-2-yl}pyrazol-4-yl)-N-methylcarboxamide, has been shown to be a highly selective A2A-adenosine receptor agonist, and is presently undergoing clinical trials as a coronary vasodilator useful in cardiac imaging.
Given the heightened interest in this and similar compounds, it has become desirable to find new methods of synthesis that provide a convenient method for making large quantities of the material in good yield and high purity. The patent that discloses the compound of interest (U.S. Pat. No. 6,403,567) provides several methods for preparing the compound. However, although these methods are suited to small scale syntheses, all synthetic methods disclosed in the patent utilize protecting groups, which is undesirable for large scale syntheses.
Additionally, it was discovered that the desired product (that is (1-{9-[(4S,2R,3R,5R)-3,4-dihydroxy-5-(hydroxymethyl)oxolan-2-yl]-6-aminopurin-2-yl}pyrazol-4-yl)-N-methylcarboxamide) is capable of existing in at least three different crystalline forms, the most stable of which is a monohydrate. This polymorph is stable under relative humidity stress conditions, up to its melting point. Accordingly, it is desirable that the final product produced in the new syntheses is obtained as the stable monohydrate.